Leadership is a Career Change, Not a Promotion

Happy Friday 😀,

Leadership is the most natural and prestigious career path for engineers in an engineering organization. It's automatic. Expected. But the question you should ask yourself is whether that’s a good thing... for anybody.

Before you say your organization has multiple career paths, and they’re all equally important, let’s be real. Your own org chart puts leaders at the top. Prestige in the organization correlates with one’s distance from engineering, and important people don’t do project work.

Because leadership is so commonly and obviously portrayed as the most prestigious and natural career path, top performers naturally expect and demand it. Unmet expectations have consequences, so these expectations weigh heavily. Like very. Not leadership qualifications, but people's expectations. Problem defined.

The result: the organization’s top talent gets cannibalized, moving from superstar contributor to okay leader, making the organization less competitive, the staff less engaged, the cost of voluntary turnover continuous, and overall performance and profit less.

Leadership is a career change, not a promotion. Engineers trade their Professional Engineering license for a box on a faux org chart, all because the organization didn't recognize where its true value actually resides. They probably just never really thought about it.

So many senior leaders have talked to me over the years, lamenting their move from projects to leadership. They were good at solving real-world problems, and the work had a tangible impact. They loved that. It felt good to be that good. They took the leadership job because it represented recognition and prestige. But in the end, half a career spent dealing with people-problems, ambiguity, and egos proved far less fulfilling.

So, back to the question: When leadership is portrayed as the most natural and prestigious career path for engineers, is that a net positive or negative? The answer is obviously negative. Business 101 says get the right people in the right seats. Leadership, being the expected career path for professional engineers, is wholly inconsistent with that basic premise. And at best, it's a 50/50 crapshoot.

Organizations can fix the perception. It starts with leadership humbly defining what and who is actually most important to the engineering organization's success. Thus, this punchline.

Punchline: The CEO of an engineering organization is paid by the engineers and exists to support them. (I should know). The same is true of every leadership position. Have you ever heard of servant engineering? Me either. So who's most important again?

In engineering organizations and in the engineering profession, the most important, respected, valued, and prestigious career paths are Exceptional Project Leader and Subject Matter Expert. Prove me wrong.

And have a great weekend,

Dave

Feedback and blowback are always welcome: dave@goodnewsfriday.com

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